Why Looking Before You Leap Might Not Always Be Good Advice

My kids and I stood on the edge of the small waterfall, looking down into the pool below. We had hiked to a location above a large waterfall, and had found several smaller falls and pools farther up river.

We really wanted to jump in, but we weren't sure we would be able to climb back out if we did.

As the dad, I was thinking about all the possible scenarios. If we couldn't climb out, what then? What if only one of us jumped in first? Would the others be able to reach them and help them out?

Would we make it onto the evening news as the trio recovered by search and rescue?

If we did make it onto the news, would it be as living examples of what not to do, or just examples of why not to do it?

If we did get stuck and then survived until rescue came, would my wife kill me afterwards?

But that pool looked amazing. My son kept telling me we should do it. I kept finding reasons why it might not go well.

The funny thing is, the longer we stood there looking at it, the harder it was to judge things accurately.

How far down was the surface of the pool from the edge?

How deep was the pool itself?

How difficult would it be to climb the sides of the falls once we were down?

Finally, after nearly 45 minutes of hemming and hawing, we agreed that my 18-year-old son would jump down first, and my teenage daughter and I would stay on top of the falls to lower a small sapling down to him if he couldn't climb out.

He lowered himself to the ledge nearest the pool and prepared to jump.

I took a breath and rehearsed what I would tell my wife.

I closed my eyes.

He jumped.

...

You know what? It's really hard to judge depth from the top of a waterfall.

He jumped in a semi-cannonball, and his feet and bottom hit the pool's sandy bottom before his head was able to submerge.

He stood up, turned around, and said. "That was the biggest nothing burger ever."

Not only was the pool not deep, but when he walked back to the falls, he was able to easily scale the sides back to where we were standing.

He then turned around and jumped again, followed by my daughter. They soon disappeared out the other side of the pool and around the bend of the river. They were off to explore, and I stood there contemplating my overreaction.

Look, I get it. I can hear you.

"But what if it had been too deep? What if the worst had happened? You can't be too careful!"

It turns out that you actually can be too careful.

Not if the whole goal of your life is safety over everything, but if you want to have adventures, make memories, or even make progress, you can absolutely be too careful.

Here's something else I learned while standing on the edge of that falls. The more concerned you are about what could potentially go wrong, the more likely you will be to overestimate the risk and danger, and the less likely you will ever be to take a leap. Ever.

And that's cool, if you just want to stay safe.

The son who jumped has always been our risk-taker. He loves to say, though he doesn't know where he heard it, that "There are some who live and then they die, and there are others who die that never quite lived."

It takes a lot for me not to squelch that spirit in him, but I also love it.

The older I get, the harder it is to embrace adventure. Safety feels...safe.

But what if what you're afraid of isn't as scary as you think?

I know there's an argument on both sides. But only one side gets to have the adventure.